Mayoral Memo - 31 January 2024
The world is changing around us. The same change may be seen as good or bad depending on your perspective.
Take population growth. Council typically sees this as good as it shows an area is progressive and it is easier to attract services and businesses to an area that is growing.
Some see it as a negative. More people require more houses and construction involves disruption. There are more cars with more congestion and, despite the best efforts of many people, we also see more deaths on the road, more suicides, more COVID-19 infections and more crime.
Let’s break down some data.
With an asterisk over the pandemic years, I want to look at comparisons pre and post that time. From December 2019 to the end of 2023, Dubbo Regional Council grew by 4.3 per cent compared to NSW at 2.6 per cent and Australia at 4.7 per cent.
Australia’s road toll for 2023 was 6.9 per cent higher than that in 2019. The median age of the 1,266 fatalities was 43 with 66.2 per cent of all deaths occurring on regional roads and 88.4 per cent on roads posted at 60km/h or above.
Suicides in our community went up by 5.1 per cent from 2019 to 2023 to 3,549 (this is extrapolated data awaiting final figures) with the median age of 45.
3,910 deaths were attributed to COVID-19 in 2023 with the median age of 85.5 compared to current life expectancy of 82.2.
And then we have crime.
Frustratingly, the data we receive is somewhat delayed so the latest figures we have are up to September 2023. The 12 months to March 2020 compared to the 12 months to September 2023 shows that the overall number of recorded incidents in major offences went up by 1.5 per cent for our LGA and went down by 0.2 per cent across the State. This would indicate that crime initiatives have been more effective than efforts to reduce our road toll or suicide rates.
The number of people in custody is 12,272 which is 12.2 per cent less than the number of prisoners in the State in February 2020. With a drop in major offences of only 0.2 per cent, it seems difficult to understand why there is such an alarming decrease in the prison population.
What is curious is the call from some for Council to take action to reduce the crime rate. Different levels of government have different responsibilities and the road toll; suicide rates; COVID-19 deaths and crime are all the primary responsibility of other levels of government. I am not sure why crime is the only area where some believe Council can wave a magic wand, but having said that, if someone has a solution as to what could be done to reduce crime, I am all ears!
Councillor Mathew Dickerson
Mayor of Dubbo Regional Council
Last Edited: 30 Jan 2024